Know in Your Heart, See in Your Mind...

Spirit, Mind, Soul, Body? Part 4

Spirit and Body?

That which makes alive is spirit. 

First, beings are either spirited and alive or not spirited and dead.

Some spirited beings are visible and others are invisible to us. Put differently, some are within our perceptual capacity while others are too small, too far away, or too subtle for us to perceive.  

That we can perceive some and not other spirited beings says more about the range of our perception than the nature of other beings themselves.

We generally speak of spirited beings that we can perceive as having a body. In my view, we do not have a body, we are bodies. All that means is that we register in the perceptual range of humans and other beings.

From our human perspective, a body is either alive or dead. When a body is alive it is spirited. When it is dead it is no longer spirited. Once it was spirited, now it isn't. The body is a carcass. This is true of all plants and animals, including us humans.

Secondly, the spiritedness of beings varies. We can be more or less spirited. Our spirit can be high, low, or in between. Our spirit can strong or weak. It can be large or small, broadly influential or of no consequence at all. It can be hot or cold, mean or sweet. It can also be sick, wounded, and broken. Our spirit is as variable as the wind.

Our body expresses the variations of our spirit. 

Thirdly, bodies are spirited for a limited time. Generally speaking the spiritedness of embodied beings follows a pattern: conception, gestation, birth, growth to maturity, decline, and death. The duration of this pattern varies across species.

Fourth and finally for now, we do not know what happens with spirit at or after death. Does the mind remain spirited and live on or not? If not, what becomes of the spirit and mind? Do they dissipate like the body decomposes? If minds can remain spirited and live on, do all live on or only some? What do they do? Are they ever re-embodied?

There is much to wonder about and explore when it comes to the relationship of spirit and body. So many unanswered questions.

   

Spirit, Mind, Soul, Body? Part 1

Spirit and mind?

Spirit and soul?

Mind and soul?

Spirit and body?

These questions I'll explore in this and upcoming posts.

I'll start with spirit and mind.

Spirit and Mind Defined

I define spirit as "that which makes alive" and mind as our cognitive function.

By spirit we are alive. By mind we are aware and able to think. 

The Relationship Between Our Spirit and Mind

In my view, spirit is prior to mind. Our spirit is that which animates our mind. Being spirited and alive makes it possible for us to be minded; that is, aware and able to think. Without spirit it is impossible for us to be aware and think. No spirit, no mind.

Not only does spirit animate our mind, it does so in varying degrees. Our mind can be more or less animated according to how spirited it is. A highly spirited mind thinks quickly. A low spirited mind thinks slowly.

However, the relationship between our spirit and mind is two-way rather than one-way. We can attend to and be aware of our own spirit and that of others. We can mindful of spirit.

In addition to being mindful of spirit, we can affect our own spirit and that of others with our mind. By our own self-talk we can lift, calm, contract, expand, withhold, and extend our spirit. 

By speaking our mind to others we can affect the spirits of others. 

The Exploration Continues

There is a growing body of scientific research that suggests that speaking our mind affects not only the spirits of other human beings but other animals and even plants as well. 

As we continue to explore spirit and what all spirit animates, no doubt we will learn more about mind as well

Contra Descartes

That I am a spirit means that I am spirited, alive. Spirit is that which makes me alive. Without spirit I would not be a living body. Without spirit I would not be a living mind. 

Spirit precedes body and mind because spirit is the life of both body and mind. By my spirit my body functions. By my spirit my mind produces thoughts and images. By spirit I am alive. 

Descartes declared, " I think, therefore I am."

Contra Descartes: I am spirited, therefore I live.

I Do Not Have a Body

I do not have a body. I am a body. I do not have a mind. I am a mind. 

Likewise, I do not have a spirit; I am a spirit. I am a spirited body-mind. 

As a spirited body-mind I do not have an ego. I am an ego, a unique self. My ego is not a part of me. My ego is me. 

There is only one of me. When I am here, I am here. When I am gone, I am gone.

While I am here, I cannot lose myself. I cannot find myself. I am my self. 

Body, Mind, and Spirit?

The more I investigate the concept of spirit in Western civilization, the more I learn how confused we Westerners are about spirit.

We're not confused about what our body is. We're not confused about what our mind is. I'm not saying that we know all there is to know about our body and mind. Far from it. We have much more to learn.

I'm saying something less or perhaps more profound, depending on how we look at it. I'm saying that in general we Westerners know what we're referring to when we use the words "body" and "mind." However, we do not know what we're referring to when we use the word "spirit." We have no general consensus on the meaning of the word "spirit." We're confused.

Why is that? What does it say about us Westerners that we know what we're referring to when we use the words "body" and "mind" but not when we use the word "spirit?"

Could it be that our lack of a general consensus on what the word "spirit" means is a symptom of how little we value spirit? We value our body and mind. We know what "body" and "mind" refer to. We have accumulated a significant amount of knowledge about our body over millennia. Over the last hundred years or so we have also learned a lot about our minds. 

What about our spirit? Does it not make sense that if we valued our spirit, we would have a general consensus on the meaning of the word? Does it not make sense that if we truly valued our spirit we would know at least as much about it as we do our mind?

I value the spirit and humans and all living beings. I believe others do too. It is time to attend to our spirit. It is time to do the hard work of creating a general consensus about the meaning of the word "spirit", and to devote ourselves to learning all we can about it.